Today we went to Ghirardelli Chocolates, who had recently opened up a store nearby. Now, before you criticize me for not doing more fine chocolate, allow me to explain that a good way to get a scope of what I might be dealing with later in life is to see them beforehand. Today, I will be comparing what I noticed at a typical industrial chocolate maker to fine chocolate stores I've visited.
One of the first things I noticed was that everything was very colorful. In comparison to brands like Dandelion Chocolate, whose packaging was very muted and understated, they tried to draw your attention with the vibrancy of the wrapping. Another thing was the volume. I had never seen a fine chocolate store with that much chocolate on their walls. One exception was the Chocolate Dispensary, but they're a reseller, rather than a maker.
The difference between a distributor and a reseller is that a reseller specifically buys and sells finished chocolate products. A distributor, on the other hand, sells wholesale. This could be anything from beans to finished chocolate, depending on the distributor. Each distributor, for the most part, concentrates on one area.
They also sold more than just chocolate. They had a menu of food and drink items, ranging from sundaes to hot chocolate. The store was also much bigger than the stores I was used to, due to seating and the volume of chocolates. They also had a wide variety of chocolate, which makes sense. With fine chocolate, you make bars using single-origin beans. This means you can only use the beans that are in season at the time. With industrial chocolate, the origin does not matter, allowing for a wide variety of fillings and flavors.
The final thing was the price. This one seemed like it would be obvious, but just after we bought a few bars and some baking chips, it struck me just how cheap everything was. The bars were $4.99 each, which to the typical human being seems totally fair. To the fine chocolatier, however, with bars this price, they would not last a month. Most craft chocolate bars range from $10 to $20 apiece, which seems absurd, until you consider how much effort was put into it.
With industrial chocolate, they can buy beans in bulk, because they do not really care about their quality. With craft chocolate, they have to carefully select only the best beans, and pay a high price for them, because the farmers who farm those beans have extremely low rates, not enough for them to live on. This is because the industrial makers don't want to pay as much for their beans, because the quality is not an issue. Fine chocolatiers need their quality, so they pay a premium for the beans.
And then there's equipment costs, labor, packaging, and rent. This all comes together to form a bar that costs $18. And that's still not enough. For the typical craft chocolatier to make a regular profit, they would need to price their bars at almost $30, which they would obviously not do. The price they are currently at seems crazy, but once you think about it, it's a miracle they don't charge more.
The chocolate itself was very low-quality, as expected, but I will say that the filling was good enough for the chocolate to be decent. Apparently, the chocolate doesn't matter, but the caramel does. Go figure. I also noticed the level of detail on the molds. Microscopically tin letters spelled out "Founded in 1852". There was an incredibly detailed eagle, and a banner with the American flag. This all fit into a 1-inch square. And so, another chocolate trip ended.
I am inside the store, next to a bunch of chocolate. This is only a fraction of the chocolate in the store, but this plus a bit more is the regular volume of chocolate at a craft chocolate location.
This is most of the store's volume. As you can see, the packaging was clearly designed to be as vibrant and eye-grabbing as possible, given all of the bright colors.
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